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There's nothing simple about the cellular structure of an egg, of meat, etc.
The replicator might be able to mix together the components making up such food - but its fine tunning is lacking. As is redundantly mentioned throughout star trek (how replicated food lacks flavor, etc).
Transporting something!=creating something. Not even close.

I admit the resolution/fine tuning idea is a good counterargument, but it seems like the show varies on what is too complex to replicate and what isn't.

Eggs are easier to replicate, Dillithium Crystals can't be.

I think the writers had to create that difficulty, because too many problems would be solved.

IIRC, I think I've even seen an episode where someone refers to replicating blood--if that is true, then it blows the idea that the replicator is limited out of the sky, although I'm not sure about the reference.

Blood being composed of living cells would mean the replicator can operate at a quantum level.

In the first half of TNG, they had replicators being able to make/create almost anything and they kept tying it in with the transporter technology.

One of the most complex things I've seen replicated on the show was the self replicating minefields. A device with computers, sensors and a replicator--basically a replicator that can replicate another functioning replicator.

It seems far-fetched that it cannot replicate a bar of gold-pressed latinum, but can do all of the above.

At the start of TNG, the replicators' abilities were ambiguous.
Afterwards, their abilities - and limitations - were crystallized.
As said, transportation!=creation.

The self replicating mines have a lot of problems: with their energy supply (and available matter) in the first place. The ability to replicate a computer and sensors (which are FAR more simplistic, informationally speaking, than biological living tissue) is a distant second.

A replicator has to be able to replicate foods that tastes like the original.

It is said that replicator technology is based off transporter technology, which can transport all types of things that is said can't be replicated or copied reliably.

It should be able to make a perfect copy of something as simple as eggs, let alone steaks, wine etc.

There's nothing simple about the cellular structure of an egg, of meat, etc.
The replicator might be able to mix together the components making up such food - but its fine tunning is lacking. As is redundantly mentioned throughout star trek (how replicated food lacks flavor, etc).
Transporting something!=creating something. Not even close.

Then you all better be questioning transporter technology as well. I know how the show depicts replicators, but yes, the structure of an egg or steak is VERY ...very simple...If you have the ability to program and store an entire human in a pattern buffer and rematerialize it ...a replicator should be able to work on the same concept. If you need more storage space, use some of that empty wall room to install a few more thousand petabytes of data storage. They have been able to reform entire organic beings from scans taken hours or days before in series.

Given all the tech we see. A replicator would only be as simple as the following. You want a steak on your menu. So someone cooks a perfect steak, and someone scans and stores its exact atomic structure the same as a transporter scan. This can then be reduced to software, which you could download or transfer to all of society and be recalled by the replicator, and using raw materials at its disposal (gel packs and such ..containing all basic components) even any masters chemist now a days could go over your raw materials and say ..yes ..this could in theory be made into all compounds needed to produce a steak. even a perfect steak by ANYONES definition is simply a quantifiable amount of protons, neutrons and electrons.

The replicator recalls the scan, all atomic locations, and using transporter technology takes the raw materials from its gel packs and converts them into the proper compounds, and assembles them into the proper configuration to match the scan just as it would a person.

If replicators cant make a perfect a steak, then transporters cant make captain janeway or captain picard when they beam on and off the ship. There is no reason a replicator cannot make a precise copy of a master chefs scanned and encoded steak the same as picard or janeway on a transporter pad. If you have a problem with the steak, its a problem with the steak program, and a problem with the recipe that was originally scanned ..not the replicator.

Just like some people dont like outbacks steak, but like O charlies steak.

It is also more likely that people who try to create new replicator programs (we see complaints most on voyager). are not as skilled at preparing food and scanning it into the replicator to be encoded as are master "replicator chefs" back home. If you complained Im sure they could tweak a program to suit your tastes. All it would mean is preparing a real piece of steak to your tastes ..then scanning and encoding it like anything else.

This is how you end up with .."neelix 235" and "nutritional supplement 14". and "HOT ..PLAIN ..TOMATO SOUP". After all, my tomato soup has added sodium and sugar and milk by products. perhaps the problem was him ASKING for "plain" tomato soup Perhaps paris should have sampled the options more.

Personaly if I had a replicator I would only use to create ingredients though. I like to cook so it would be simple and very efficient. I would replicate only raw meat, cook it like normal, And replicate my seasonings or garnishes seperately and apply them by hand.. No need to replicate the entire dish.

even a perfect steak by ANYONES definition is simply a quantifiable amount of protons, neutrons and electrons

But it more than that, an actual (not a substitute) steak is the flesh of the beast, it's muscle tissue. What come out of a replicator never itself came out of a cow.
Antican: "But we have seen humans eat meat."
Riker: "You've seen something as fresh and tasty as meat."

In other words, not meat.

If replicators cant make a perfect a steak, then transporters cant make captain janeway or captain picard when they beam on and off the ship. There is no reason a replicator cannot make a precise copy of a master chefs scanned and encoded steak the same as picard or janeway on a transporter pad.

The thing is there is, the transporter doesn't "make" either Picard or Janeway when they are transported, it just move them from one place to another. Nothing is created or changed in a normal transport.

Given all the tech we see. A replicator would only be as simple as the following.

Or this happens. Let's say you want a poached egg (my favorite kind), the replicator creates a yellow thick liquid inside of a cavity in a soft solid white substance, both of these (as close as possible) have the coloring, smell and flavor of a poached egg. There no attempt on the replicators part to create an actual cooked biological egg.

If you were to ask the replicator for a fertilized chicken egg, in the shell, and you then placed the egg in a warm environment for 21 day, guess what? It would not produce a chick, because it was never a real egg.

When it comes right down to it, the egg (and the steak) are fakes. For the purpose of providing a nutritious meal to the crew of a starship, the food doesn't have to be "real." Just recognizable, nutritious and edible.

Why take the enormous and unnecessary step of making a down to the subatomic level duplicate egg? What purpose would it serve?

How can you have an economic system where money/value "disappears" when it is spent? Where store owners receive no compensation for the items that come off their shelves, that they display, market and distribute?

Where everyone randomly rotates through administration and management positions? And then the next day works as a skilled craftsman? And the day after that works as a physical laborer?

The guy who wrote this paper seems overly in love with the terms (and concept of) "empowered" and "empowerment."

From the main article; Those unwilling found themselves having to participate in the restructuring or not get the needed resources to live with, and soon fell into line.

And here we see how a silly idea like "participatory economics" would come into existence following the third world war. Force and starvation.

I have trouble with the time line proposed in the article. That Zephram Cochrane would quickly morph into a some kind of world leader who organizes international conferences on global economics. From what we saw in First Contact, Cochrane would literally run away from such a activity and position. That a couple of men from a small farming commune would be able to force their way into a meeting of world leaders and basically take over the meeting. To have the leaders of major national powers hang on their every word as they described a system that would (among other things) strip the leaders of their power.

The secret service would have arrested these bozos prior to their getting through the outside doors.

How many of you on this board would want to depend on the largess of the people in your community for your house, food, transportation, education? I get along with my neighbors fairly well, but I don't want a committee deciding my diet for the next year. Nor do I want them informing me how much I'll "need" to work to be permitted stay in my home.

There's an argument that the transported person is just a copy. Since the original pattern was dissolved and turned into computer data, and then reformed based on that data.

I'm no physicist at all, so I'll take a shot at a theory on this.

I'll assume that the atomic levels carries the properties of the quantum by default, so if you replicate the atoms of a yolk and shell in a specific pattern, you'll get the quantum properties of that yolk and shell automatically.

You should get an egg about as real as the original with all its properties.

If the pattern in the replicator was based on an original object that was scanned into the computer, then when that pattern replicated, it should replicate the eggs with much more of it qualities than Trek sometimes claim.

The only way I can see a steak not tasting like steak, is if the replicator replicates a couple of 'wrong' molecules in it

Or if the atoms that are replicated are some weird type of empty atoms that affect the quality of taste and texture.

its ok. Its clear quite a few folks are far from Physicists or chemists or biologists.

And actually transporters destroy matter, convert it into energy, according to E=MC2 this mass is preserved as an equal conversion. This energy is used to REFORM matter at the destination from raw energy. converting energy back into mass particles. You cannot move matter close to C through space without a warp field. You get around this by converting the mass to energy. The simplest example is antimatter annihilation. You take the complete mass of the object and convert it into its constituant parts (pure energy , no protons or neutrons or electrons just pure EM emissions). If you took hydrogen, and anti hydrogen which equals 1 proton 1 neutron 1 electron and 1 antiproton 1 neutron and 1 positron you would get 0 protons 0 electrons 0 positrons and 0 anti protons and instead get a massive amount of EM radiation. So energy IS matter, and matter IS energy...in a certain form. Startrek DID get this part right ....

Transporters are stated on many occasions to borrow from this idea , converting mass to energy, and converting energy back into mass. For this to work it would imply sensor and computer capacity and modulation from the hardware sophisticated enough to direct these converstions on a nano scale. Which is what the transporters do.

It is also clearly stated several times in canon and in the manuals replicators DO function based on transporter technology. They use raw materials, and using transporter technology reengineer it on a nano scale. "flesh from a cow" has quantifiable properties, it has atoms in certain locations. These can be duplicated if you have the scanning resolution ...and ....a transporter.

Problem with AUTHOR notes ...is that startrek retcons itself on every occasion possible. I go with the scientificly plausible and the technical manuals ..not the author notes

I'll assume that the atomic levels carries the properties of the quantum by default, so if you replicate the atoms of a yolk and shell in a specific pattern, you'll get the quantum properties of that yolk and shell automatically.

No they don't.
You can't create an exact copy of quantum information under any circumstances without destroying the original (google no cloning theorem).

The only way I can see a steak not tasting like steak, is if the replicator replicates a couple of 'wrong' molecules in it

You do not seem to understand how informationally complex living systems are.
There's a HUGE difference between the bare ingredients and a living tissue made of them.

I still say: the replicator did it. Remove scarcity, and you change the economic system completely.

I recently finished Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. It predicts that replicator-like technology is coming soon. People feel compelled to create open-source parts that can be shared and replicated on the Internet. The value of manufactured goods is already decreasing. This will continue as people manufacture open-source parts they share over the Internet, similar to how personal Youtube videos (provided for free as a labor of love) have replaced some commercial TV viewing.

I don't know if this is true, but I could see elements of it happening and realizing some of the Star Trek economy. Maybe all the cost to produce goods by replicator is trifling, like the cost of water from a bubbler. Maybe the patterns, designs, and software are produced as a labor of love and for recognition as an expert in the field.

I don't know if this could work because it seems like eventually there would be some things that are scarce, esp things that require someone else's time.

It requires stretching my imagination, but I can imagine people ordering dinner the way we stop by a bubbler in the park. If they want something special, they go to a place like Sisko's father's restaurant where you give them respect and publicity for providing something special.

Another book to check out in the vein is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It provides cases where paying people paradoxically makes a task a chore and not paying them makes it a fun game that they are inclined to work harder at.

I am not predicting a future with a Star Trek economy. Based on what I've seen with open-source hardware and software in the past few years, though, it's much easier to suspend belief when Star Trek economics comes up.

The problem I've always had with this argument is the Federation at least is supposed to possess a high ethical code, but you are still going to step into a machine that ends your personal existence? Even if an exact copy of you is created at the far end of the process, you are still gone. You're dead.

I don't see it. Yes, select individuals might have a fatalistic philosphy on the matter, they don't believe in the personal self. But we seen many people on the various show who display a reverence for life, they mourn the passing of others, and will fight to preserve their own life's and personal survival.

These people Nightdiamond are not going to step into the transporter you describe.

Photonic wrote:

And actually transporters destroy matter, convert it into energy

The transporter would seem to change the "transportee" into some kind of energy state, but not destroy the orginal matter in favor of energy. We know from Kirk and Saavik conversation, and Barkley's personal experience that people being transporter remain conscious and aware, and are capable of movement in the matter stream. We've seen many examples of people materializing in different positions than they were in when they dematerialized.

While you are in an energy state, you remain (in some fashion) a person the entire time. You never cease to exist.

Edit_XYZ wrote:

Transforming a person into energy=a large yield atomic explosion.

That goes beyond converting into energy, that also involves then releasing the energy. There no evidence that a person's mass/energy is being release during transport.

That goes beyond converting into energy, that also involves then releasing the energy. There no evidence that a person's mass/energy is being release during transport.

T'Girl, there does NOT exist a magical energy form (EM radiation, kinetic, etc, etc) that does not explode into an atomic explosion if there is enough of it concentrated to equate to 90 kg worth of matter.
Unless you view matter as energy in the first place, that is. In which case, matter is the only exception.

And you clearly do not 1. apply the fundamentals of your studies to their absolutes. 2. Apply them to broader models than what you earned your degree in and 3. think outside the box. We can only go on WHAT is most "copy and paste" to our best physics knowledge, and that is that transporters and replicators ...are stated to convert energy to mass and vice versa. Perhaps via some means we do not understand. And reassembling them in a variety of forms. Again, startrek retcons itself on countless occasions ..the barkley episode about transporter phobia is one of them.

lets have a one on one. We can eliminate the disparities in our language and come to a common understanding I am sure. We already KNOW mass and energy are interchangeable. You come off like some first year student in physics who assumes converting mass/energy equals energy release. This does not have to be the case and someone I believe already addressed this issue. If you can further convert and preserve the EM emissions to something that can be transmitted..which is at yet ..unknown ...why should mass be lost? ahh ..the laws of thermodynamics. But what if you could also replicate the same em emissions from the transporter hardware to replace the energy lost in the interactions such that it would be the same or at least similar to the original product.

This is why I do not agree with transporter technology as depicted in startrek. You are indeed not preserving quantum states ..but thats was never implied in the show. As far as I am concerned ...it is a copy, while it might be atomically perfect . The only method of teleportation i subscribe to would be multi dimensional transferrance. It would be far easier to accept based on occams razor (which actually means ..."explanations should be KEPT simple ..until we can aquire the increased explanatory power" it is commonly misinterpreted). That if indeed the person was "transported" they took a multidimensional path to get there. As with warp fields bending space time, being able to access higher dimensions where space can exist in multiple configurations and you may choose the right one ...is more plausible than converting mass/energy and preserving its quantum state.

So you are right in your questioning of my opinion, but you dont know how deep it goes. Keep trying

And you clearly do not 1. apply the fundamentals of your studies to their absolutes. 2. Apply them to broader models than what you earned your degree in and 3. think outside the box.

I think outside the box just fine. It's just that I keep track of certain fundamental principles while doing so - you know, conservation of energy, thermodynamics, that kind of stuff.

I already said enough to demonstrate the matter/energy scheme for replicators/transporters is absurd - in light of fundamental scientific principles. I won't repeat myself again.
If teleportation/replication will ever be invented, they won't be using such means.

"But what if you could also replicate the same em emissions from the transporter hardware to replace the energy lost in the interactions such that it would be the same or at least similar to the original product."
Because what comes out of the transporter would be either a failed genetic experiment of a Bizzaro 'copy' of the person that came in.
Of course, there are tons of gigantic problems before you arrive at this one (how do you convert mass in energy - what king of energy, for that matter; how do you keep that energy from exploding/radiating; etc, etc).

"are stated to convert energy to mass and vice versa. Perhaps via some means we do not understand."
"The only method of teleportation i subscribe to would be multi dimensional transferrance."
"higher dimensions where space can exist in multiple configurations and you may choose the right one "
Photonic, you should skip all this technobabble and name these concepts for what they are - magic/fantasy.
The concepts you're using are from fuzzy pseudo-physics. And, despite what you think, they don't make your ideas more credible.

No they don't.
You can't create an exact copy of quantum information under any circumstances without destroying the original (google no cloning theorem).

You do not seem to understand how informationally complex living systems are.

Not according to Riker and Data when they talk about replicators and transporters;.

DATA: Much of it is real, sir. If the transporters can convert our bodies to an energy beam, then back to the original pattern again.....

RIKER: Yes, of course. And these rocks and vegetation have much simpler patterns.

And yet these are the same types that claim a food product from the replicator doesn't taste the same as the original-or that the replicator can't recreate certain items.

There's a HUGE difference between the bare ingredients and a living tissue made of them.

That's just thing. the main goal we're going for is to replicate a steak that taste like the real thing, which some characters in the Trek universe claim the replicators can't do.

Why not scan an actual steak cut from a muscle? True, it's not a living muscle, it's not simple either, but the show itself suggests It can be done--it should be done on a regular basis.

Photonic wrote:

Transporters are stated on many occasions to borrow from this idea , converting mass to energy, and converting energy back into mass.

It is also clearly stated several times in canon and in the manuals replicators DO function based on transporter technology. They use raw materials, and using transporter technology reengineer it on a nano scale. "flesh from a cow" has quantifiable properties, it has atoms in certain locations. These can be duplicated if you have the scanning resolution ...and ....a transporter.

Exactly- The show itself confirms it, and there are probably a gazillion other statements about it.

RIKER: You've seen something as fresh and tasty as living meat, but inorganically materialized out of patterns used by our transporters.

Riker connects transporters, replication and the product's qualities all together.

T'Girl wrote:

Why take the enormous and
unnecessary step of making a down to the subatomic level duplicate egg? What purpose would it serve?

Supposedly, one reason why people do strange things for money in the 24th century when they have replicators is--the real thing tastes, feels, looks so much better.

And the replicators supposedly can't make it like the original.

So it has more value, and people work, otherwise--some of it doesn't make any since when you see jobs people are doing that they hate and stresses them out, but they need the money..

Kassidy Yates works a grueling schedule, and later risks going to prison but it looks like shes does it because she likes money and needs it, even though she knows what a replicator is.